Trophies
by Ergott
Summary: It wasn’t until many hours later—-as Harry laid in bed after the impromptu, early-morning, celebratory feast—-that he had wondered if something new hadn’t been released from the Chamber of Secrets. CoS/PoA AU.
1. The Boy Who Died

**Trophies**

Summary: Evil is not always overwhelming and insane; sometimes it's calm, logical, and all the more seductive for its subtleties. Tom Riddle knew this, but an unfortunate accident while creating his diary prevented him from ever putting it into practice. Now, fifty years later, he may have been given a second chance to do all the wrong things right.

Genre: Fantasy/Supernatural

Rating: T

* * *

Chapter One: The Boy Who Died

Harry Potter had, undoubtedly, grown accustomed to strange things happening in his life; eleven years of living with his unbalanced relatives and two years of attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the famous Boy-Who-Lived had seen to that. He had faced down the Dursleys (who were really less than sane, in his opinion), cursed Quidditch equipment, misguided house elves, lunatic professors, Snape (who stood in a category all his own), roving bands of Slytherins, an extremely bitter (and still, apparently, dangerous) Dark Lord, and the Weasley twins' unflagging humor. Nevertheless, the sight of Tom Riddle standing ever-so-calmly over Ginny Weasley's prone body, amicably explaining how he was not only the Heir of Slytherin, but Lord Voldemort himself, had been bordering on the ludicrous. Even now, just over three weeks later, it haunted him.

He had, in some strange way, trusted the older boy. It had been easy to believe that Riddle had made a mistake, fifty years ago, when accusing Hagrid of opening the Chamber of Secrets. After all, Hagrid _was_ rather fierce-looking to those who did not properly know him, he _had_ been raising a suspicious animal at the time, and there was something so ironically _trustworthy_ about Riddle that Harry hadn't wanted to believe the older wizard had framed someone. Riddle had just gotten his facts confused, jumped to some unfortunate conclusions, and yet… even before he had faced Riddle, there had been a nagging at the back of his mind. Tom Riddle was, after all, supposed to have been a brilliant student, otherwise he wouldn't have been made a Prefect, so how had he managed to come to such a horribly wrong conclusion? No one was less suited to be the Heir of Slytherin than Hagrid! In the end, Harry had chalked it up to panic; even the best minds faltered when they were desperate. He wished, now that the harrowing event was over with, that he had known about Mr. Weasley's rule—never trust anything that can think for itself when you can't see where it keeps its brain—but he was still so new to the wizarding world that it hadn't crossed Harry's mind to be mistrustful of Riddle's diary.

And it should have, really. It was just _too convenient_ that Hogwarts had been under attack from the Heir of Slytherin, and the magical diary that Harry had found had just_ happened_ to contain the memory of a boy who had been at the school the last time the Chamber had been opened. Harry found, with no small amount of self-disgust, that his naivety was bordering on the oblivious, and that was the sort of thing—with Voldemort constantly lurking in the shadows—that could get him killed. It nearly had, as a matter of fact; if it hadn't been for Fawkes, he _would_ have died. (Although, at the back of his mind, Harry found it rather unfair that Parselmouths could still be susceptible to snake venom. What good was it to be so connected to serpents if he was still innately vulnerable to them?)

Harry also knew that if _he_ was being haunted so thoroughly by all these thoughts, then Ginny had to be downright tortured, and no amount of Dumbledore's cheery hot chocolate would change that fact. Poor Ginny had poured out her heart and soul to someone she had—mistakenly—thought cared, someone who had been sympathetic, someone who had fast become an important friend for her. He couldn't even begin to imagine how frightened and alone she must have felt when she started to realize that there were blank stretches in her memory, always corresponding to some trouble that had been caused at school, or when her diary had begun to take on shades of the sinister. Harry could understand why she hadn't told them about her suspicions or worries, but he would never understand why, after going to all the trouble of getting rid of the diary, she had begun writing to Riddle again after she'd reclaimed it. She must have known that it wasn't normal, or she wouldn't have tried to throw it away in the first place. But perhaps, by then, Riddle had already had enough control over her that Ginny hadn't really had a choice in the matter.

Something more was bothering Harry though, something _strange_; something that had stood out even in the midst of so many bizarre twists of fate. Down in the Chamber of Secrets, even while worrying about Ginny, facing down Riddle, and dodging a deadly basilisk, he had felt as though he were being watched. As though unseen eyes had been hungrily tracking his every move. But there hadn't been anyone else in the Chamber, had there.

Had there?

Fawkes had appeared rather suddenly, and Harry desperately wanted to believe that was what he had sensed, but those invisible eyes had continued to burn into him long after the phoenix had arrived. And honestly, who knew what else could have been lurking within the personal haven of Salazar Slytherin, along with that basilisk? The very thought gave Harry the shivers. But, of course, that panic had been put clear out of his mind when the giant snake's venom had begun coursing through his veins. Unfortunately, it hadn't _stayed_ out of his mind; the eerie feeling of being watched by something he couldn't see had magnified ten-fold after he had destroyed Riddle's diary. Even while standing in Professor McGonagall's office, talking to Dumbledore, that strange prickle at the back of his neck had persisted. But he had brushed it off as nerves over Ginny, Ron, or himself possibly being expelled.

It wasn't until many hours later—as he laid in bed after the impromptu, early-morning, celebratory feast—that he had wondered if something _new_ hadn't been released from the Chamber of Secrets.

_

* * *

Harry opened his eyes to darkness, a black void stretching out before him with no beginning and no end. There was no ground beneath his feet and no sky above his head. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that something solid was underfoot._

"_Hello?" he called into the void, his voice echoing as though he were in a cave._

_And then, with startling suddenness, he was no longer alone. A diary had appeared—thin, covered in cracked black leather, and bearing the words TM Riddle in gold lettering—floating serenely above what Harry had to believe was a floor. The diary was familiar, sinister, but it was the only thing around; cautiously, he approached it. He hadn't made it more than a few careful steps before the small book flew open, its pages oozing inks of all colors. _

"_Do you know about the Chamber of Secrets?" Harry heard his own voice echo out of the surrounding darkness. Ink from the diary began to drip onto the invisible floor, giving it substance. For a moment there was nothing, then there was ink-slicked stone spreading underfoot in all directions._

_The diary gave a shudder, a horrible sickening jolt that made it spray ink like a fountain, then a voice filled the air in reply. It was a voice Harry had heard often enough in the back of his head or in his dreams. The voice was low and smooth, with a lilting cadence, full of confidence and trickery. It was Tom Riddle. "Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But Headmaster Dippett, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned."_

_Despite himself, Harry listened with rapt attention as Riddle's voice replayed what had been written in the diary. It was amazing, in hindsight, how carefully Riddle had constructed his answer to gain Harry's trust, amazing how much of it had been true while managing not to incriminate Riddle himself. "The one with the power was not imprisoned," Harry snorted to himself. "Quite clever. You weren't talking about Hagrid, were you? You meant yourself. And the trophy," he snorted again, "that must have been a laugh, receiving an award for your dirty work, always having a reminder that you'd managed to murder someone right under all the professors' noses. You must have loved that trophy dearly."_

_A whispered, "Perhaps," reached his ears, but it was gone so quickly that Harry had to wonder if he'd heard it at all._

_The pooling ink had begun to creep as Riddle talked, forming pillars and distant walls. With a jolt, Harry realized that he was now standing in an ink-drenched version of the Chamber of Secrets. A blurry image of Ginny, pale and still, had appeared at the far end of the Chamber, and Harry had just started toward her when a burst of light alerted him that the diary was doing something else. The thin book was glowing, casting strange shadows upon an already strange room. Then, as though it couldn't stand the intrusion of light, the ink stopped dripping to the floor and began to cover the book, wrapping around it like a cocoon. A few minutes passed in silence, then the ink began to bubble, as though boiling. An arm appeared from the colorful mess, then another, two legs, a head, and a torso, until a boy stood where the diary had once been, wild-eyed and covered in ink._

"_I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," an insane smile twisted his ink-stained lips. "For the chance to see you. To speak to you."_

_Harry backed up several paces, somehow more unnerved by this version of Riddle than the one Ginny had originally released. "You're dreaming," he said to himself, suddenly desperate to wake up._

"_You found my diary," Riddle whispered, his hand stretching out to Harry, "and I couldn't have been more delighted." His manic grin widened, "Of all the people who could have picked it up, it was _you_, the very person I was most anxious to meet…"_

"_You're not real," Harry shouted at the older boy, backing up even further when Riddle began to walk toward him._

"_Ginny told me all about you," Riddle said, a hungry look entering his eyes._

"_I've already defeated you," Harry continued. "I'm dreaming!"_

_A gaping hole appeared in Riddle's chest, oozing ink instead of blood, but the boy continued to lumber forward. "For many months now, my new target has been—you."_

_Harry tripped on an uneven stone, falling backward. He shut his eyes as he fell, but quickly opened them again. "I defeated you," he repeated._

_Riddle loomed over him, ink dripping down his front and sliding grotesquely from the corner of his lips. "Do you feel safe now?" Riddle asked as he slowly collapsed into a puddle around the prone boy._

_Harry was relieved beyond words, but it was short lived. As soon as Riddle disappeared, the Chamber began to move, ink bubbling and writhing until it had taken on the shape of Professor McGonagall's office. A blurry vision of Dumbledore sat behind her desk, staring serenely down at Harry, who realized that he had somehow come to be seated in an inky chair. _

_Dumbledore raised Tom Riddle's venom-burnt diary. "Brilliant," he said softly. "Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen. Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle; hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here."_

"_But they could have," a voice whispered out of the darkness, jolting Harry, "if they'd wanted too, if they hadn't been so blind."_

_Dumbledore turned to Harry, obviously not having heard the voice. "So you met Tom Riddle," he said thoughtfully. "I imagine he was _most_ interested in you…"_

"_Yes," the voice mocked, talking over the aging professor, "I imagine he was."_

"_It is our choices," Dumbledore continued, his eyes unfocused and his conversation disjointed, "that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."_

_Someone grabbed Harry from behind, arms banding across his shoulders while a hand wrapped over his throat. "Let's take a look at your choices, shall we?" the mocking voice asked. "At the tender age of twelve, you have already murdered someone, though in all fairness, it was out of self-defense and you probably didn't consider a preserved memory to truly be a _person_. Still, you destroyed the diary without any thought to the consequences. What if the price you paid for your freedom from the Chamber of Secrets turns out to be too heavy? What if you've released something even worse?" The hand at his throat tightened. "Do you feel brave, Harry Potter?" the sinister voice whispered in his ear._

* * *

"_WAKE UP, BOY!_" Vernon Dursley shouted through his nephew's bedroom door. "You'll disturb the neighbors if you carry on screaming like that!"

Harry jumped from his bed, as though catapulted from the nightmare about Riddle. His relief at finally being freed from his horrible dream was short lived, as seemed to be the pattern in his life, when his uncle entered the small room.

Vernon Dursley was a large man with no neck and clearly too much mustache. His resemblance to a walrus was uncanny and unfortunate. Harry was sure there were many kindhearted walruses in the world that would take exception to the fact that Uncle Vernon was masquerading in their shape while being so intentionally horrid. His beefy purple face drew up uncomfortably close to Harry. "Isn't it enough," the older man snarled, "that your aunt and I have taken you in for so many years? Have continued to accept you into our home even after your apparent freakishness made itself known? And how do you pay us back? By lazing about all day!" He raised a think arm to cuff Harry about the head. "The least you can do is go downstairs and make breakfast so that your poor, overworked aunt can rest."

Harry dodged his uncle with the ease of great practice. "Yes, Uncle Vernon," he murmured tiredly while quickly ducking around the gigantic man.

In some ways he really supposed he ought to be grateful. After all the trouble Dobby had caused him last summer, and how the Dursleys had responded to it—namely by confining him to his room and putting bars on his window—he hadn't been sure that they would allow him back in the house at all. Not that it was any great treat, he would have much preferred staying with the Weasleys anyhow, but he supposed that—despite their psychotic behavior—the Dursleys were being as generous as they could be to someone like him. They certainly wouldn't be winning any awards for their hospitality, but nor were they quite as likely to be given a strong talking to by child services.

"Even Mrs. Cole treated me better than those muggles treat you, and she thought I was insane," a voice whispered in Harry's ear, but in the same instant his cousin, Dudley, came thundering into the kitchen, forcefully putting the disturbance out of Harry's mind. It was probably just his strange dream lingering about him still, anyhow.

It wasn't until he was about to dig in to his own meager breakfast of buttered toast, that the voice came back. "You can't ignore me, Harry," it whispered in one ear, then switched to the other and added, "I'll not have it."

Harry was just beginning to wonder if he was going the tiniest bit insane, or if a snake was following him around that he hadn't yet noticed, when the platter of fried sausages in front of Dudley shattered violently, imbedding bits of porcelain into the table and ceiling. All eyes turned to Harry accusingly.

"It wasn't me," he exclaimed, as dumbfounded as the Dursleys, when he noticed something from the corner of his eye.

Leaning against the kitchen counter, semi-transparent and dressed in smart black robes, was none other than Tom Riddle.

* * *

A/N: I'm a horrible person, starting something new when I should be finishing some of my other works, but this idea accosted me while I was in the depths of writers' block and it wouldn't leave me alone. I've already done more preliminary work on this story than I've ever done on stories in the past, so this isn't just a random lark.

With that in mind, here are my other reasons for doing this: I wanted to try my hand at something that wasn't overshadowed by romance; I've never written anything that didn't have some element of a love story in it, so this is a rather interesting experiment for me. Also, I really like Tom Riddle as a character; I mean, the study of his psychology alone is fascinating, and I've always felt that, since he was the villain, we never really learned enough about him. That being said, I have these small warnings to give:

1) I'm rather obsessive about dates and timelines, since it's one of the easiest things to mess up in a story (and, indeed, I have done so before). I'm putting an extraordinary amount of effort into getting all the dates right here, but, unfortunately, there's a little bit of disagreement among the Harry Potter community about when certain things happened. Right now, I'm using a source that calculated everything they could, based on what information was given in the books and by Rowling herself; I'm inclined to think they probably have the right of things, because they go out of their way to explain how they got their facts, so if you disagree with a date, I'm going to need a very sound reason as to why. That doesn't mean I don't welcome you to challenge me, by all means do! I'm a history geek so I find this kind of thing fun.

2) This is my first Harry Potter fic in a long, _long_ time, and I will try my very best, but mistakes are inevitable for anyone who isn't Rowling.

3) This is an AU story starting at the end of The Chamber of Secrets, as you might have guessed, so I'm going to have to ask everyone to disregard all of the books after that. I might keep some of the events of book three, but it's questionable, so don't get your hopes up. Also, I claim artistic license. That doesn't mean I'll use it as an excuse to make everyone completely out of character, but I will develop them in my own way; for some characters you may enjoy it, for some you may not. But I promise, above all, that I will remain consistent in how I write them.

4) Like I said earlier, this story is an experiment for me while I'm waiting for my writers' block to bugger off so that I can continue my Labyrinth stories. I take all of my work very seriously, and I will with this one as well, but because it's just something to fill the hours I can't promise that updates will be regular at all.

5) This story is not slash. Like I said above, there will be no romantic element this time around. That's not to say that there won't be seduction (of the non-romantic variety), for the Dark is nothing, if not seductive. Nevertheless, there are no focus pairings in this story.

6) The views expressed in this story are not, necessarily, my own. It's a sensitive matter when you write a character like Tom Riddle. On the other hand, I won't always agree with what Harry says, either. So please, if something offends you, be aware that it's not me, the author, spreading personal propaganda, I'm just trying to be true to the characters.

Pleas Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any associated characters, locations, or concepts; rights belong to JK Rowling. Portions of the text were taken directly out of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. After this chapter, it's not likely that I will quote from the original books so heavily, or, possibly, at all.


	2. Broken Toys

Warnings: Spoilers for books at the end of the series. Mostly just book six, for the discussion of Horcruxes.

* * *

Chapter Two: Broken Toys.

Aunt Petunia was the first one to jump to her feet. "My poor Dudeykins!" she cried, throwing her arms around her whale of a son—no small feat in any respect—who was now looking rather forlornly at where the sausages had once been.

Uncle Vernon lumbered to his feet as well, knocking his chair backward in his haste. His ruddy face turned an unseemly shade of purple and he looked as though he were about to start one of his famous Screaming At Harry lectures but, at the last minute, seemed to think better of it. "Didn't we just discuss you ingratitude, boy?" he choked out quietly, though it was painfully obvious that he wanted to roar.

Harry, for his part, didn't hear either of them; his eyes were fixed on Riddle, watching for sudden movements. He wished, desperately, that hadn't left his wand back in his room; it wasn't going to be easy to fight Riddle without it. It would be difficult to fight Riddle no matter what, even more so with his relatives around. "You leave them alone," Harry said firmly, finally rising from his own chair to stand between the older boy and the Dursleys.

Riddle bemusedly lifted his dark eyebrows. "Why do you fight for them, Harry?" He cocked his head to the side, "They wouldn't do the same for you."

"That doesn't matter," Harry said, about to further explain that a life was sacred—he would even save the prolifically annoying Draco Malfoy, if it ever came down to it—but his uncle interrupted him.

"What the devil are you doing, Potter?" Uncle Vernon asked faintly. "Who are you talking to?"

Harry whipped around to give his relatives an incredulous look. "Don't you see him?" he asked, turning back around to point at the dangerous wizard, but Riddle—if he'd ever been there at all—had gone.

* * *

In the end, it took quite a while to get away from the Dursleys, who were all convinced that he was having some kind of psychotic episode, and he'd had to swear up and down that he was only going to his room for the rest of the day and wasn't meeting up with any of his "freakish friends".

"Am I going mad?" Harry wondered to himself as he paced the short length of his room. Perhaps it was only a measure of his own increasing paranoia over the situation, but he had half expected an answer to that question. He paced for a few minutes more. "I should write Dumbledore," he decided at length, quickly pulling out some parchment and quills that he'd managed to hide—along with his wand—before the Dursleys had locked up his trunk. After a few minutes of fussing, he finally sat down to write his letter, but his quill just hovered over the parchment uncertainly. What would he say? 'Dear Professor Dumbledore, I'm seeing and hearing Tom Riddle when no else can. Hope you're having a lovely summer; Harry Potter'? That seemed like a one-way ticket to St. Mungo's. Perhaps he was simply over-reacting; maybe the stress from having faced Riddle a few weeks ago was giving him nightmares and forcing him to hallucinate. He didn't want to trouble Dumbledore over nothing, but still… this _was_ Tom Riddle, and caution always had to be exerted when dealing with the darkest wizard of all time.

"I'll write Hermione," he decided quickly after receiving a horrible jolt when the ink from his quill dripped onto his parchment; it reminded him too much of his dream. But Hermione would have something useful to say; she was always full of advice. And then, if she ended up recommending that he tell Dumbledore, he wouldn't feel as though he'd panicked and made a rash decision.

_Dear Hermione,_

_How are you? I wish I could say I was better, but strange things have been happening this summer._

Harry stared at the beginning of his letter for a minute, wondering how to explain the awful dream he'd had and the vision of Riddle he'd seen in the kitchen, when the ink disappeared before his eyes. For a moment he thought Fred and George had slipped invisible ink into his trunk but, as he watched in sick fascination, the ink came back—shaped into new words.

_Why do you rely on them so much? Isn't your own judgment good enough?_

Harry stared at the familiar, spidery writing in horror, looked around his room for anything suspicious, and then did the unthinkable. He wrote back.

"_How is this happening? _Why_ is this happening?"_

_You recognize an opportunity when you see one, don't you Harry? No point in asking your friends when the very cause of your problem is here, right? Very well, I'll tell you. This is happening because some things transcend even death, because you can't get rid of me as easily as you'd swat away a fly; this is happening because you, Harry Potter, are a reckless child._

The writing paused for a few seconds, as though waiting for Harry to respond, but he only continued to stare at his parchment in frozen shock.

_Didn't I tell you last night? Destroying the diary had consequences you can't even imagine._

So the dream—nightmare, really—had been real, Harry thought dismally, and now he'd released something terrible into the world but he didn't have the first clue as to what it was.

_But you're about to find out._

Riddle continued writing, but, in a rush of panic, Harry crumpled the parchment and threw it into the waste bin. After all, he reasoned to himself, the diary had only had power because it had fed off of Ginny; so, if he stopped writing to the parchment, it couldn't gain any power.

"I'm not in the paper, Harry," Riddle's voice chuckled from behind him.

"Then what are you in?" Harry asked, fearing that the answer would be him. He'd been the one to destroy the diary, after all. What if Riddle's memories had transferred into him somehow? He was already living with a bit of Voldemort in him, what if that had called to magic of Riddle's memory and now he had double the evil locked within him? As far as he could tell, the only thing he'd gotten from Voldemort was the ability to speak parseltongue, but this manifestation of Riddle seemed powerful. What if it took him over? Could Tom Riddle live again through the body of Harry Potter? How many people could he fool and betray if he had access to such an ingenious mask to hide behind?

"That's just it," the older boy mocked, "I'm not _in_ anything. Don't you get it yet, Potter?" Riddle's voice came closer, as though he were leaning right behind Harry. "Thanks to your _heroic _fight against the diary, I'm _free_." His voice took on a manic twinge, "After fifty years of being trapped, I'm _finally_ free!"

Harry steeled himself then turned around but, just as he had feared, Riddle stood behind him. The older boy was tall and lean, with thin, boney hands. His hair was tidy and dark, making his skin look almost unhealthily pale in contrast; his eyes were dark and intelligent, and his robes were in perfect order. He looked very much like a handsome and confident sixteen year old. How could anyone, looking at him in this form, suspect that he was the evil Lord Voldemort? The only thing about him that was even remotely suspect—disregarding the hungry and triumphant look on his face—was that he was see-through. Not misty around the edges, as the memory from the diary had been, but transparent like a ghost.

Harry felt hope kindle within him. Perhaps Riddle was just that—a ghost.

The dark eyed boy began humming then, as though suddenly remembering a long forgotten tune. He turned from Harry, examining the meager bedroom with his brows raised, occasionally running his translucent hand over some of Dudley's old broken toys. "How much of the wizarding world," he murmured, "do you think would die of shock if they knew that their beloved Harry Potter lived in such neglect?"

Harry didn't answer, only continued to watch as the toys suddenly sprang to life at Riddle's ghostly touch; the shattered lens of the broken camera became whole again, the bent air-riffle straightened out, and the mountain bike huddled in the corner of the room reclaimed its long-lost chain. "How did you do that?" he asked, noticing that the older boy had no wand—could a ghost even use a wand?

"Our circumstances are so similar that it amazes me how we continue to remain different," Riddle shook his head. "I got tired of only being given the broken hand-me-downs of others. It wasn't hard work to fix most of them, and magic helped." He turned to Harry for a moment, meeting the smaller boy's green eyes. "But I found that I became quite obsessed with the inner-workings of things as a result. I'm always curious about the small details, and how I can change them to achieve the desired result." He turned away again, this time eying the small wardrobe full of clothes that were much too big for the room's occupant.

"I meant," Harry clarified, ignoring the similarities the older boy had pointed to between them, "how did you do that without a wand?"

"We all have the capacity for wandless magic," Riddle answered, making a face at the hideous old sweater he'd found buried in the back of the wardrobe. "It's not a great power, when compared to what one can do with the full focus of a wand, but it's still an interesting skill to hone." He shook the sweater out, distaste clear on his face, and turned it, between snaps of poorly dyed fabric, into a neatly cut set of robes. He eyed Harry for a moment. "It might be a bit long," he finally said, placing the robes at the front of the other clothes, "you are rather short for you age." He began humming again, as he went through the rest of the clothes, then stopped and added, "If it's the Ministry you're worried about, I wouldn't bother. They won't be able to sense my magic because I'm not, in a technical sense, here." He resumed his humming.

Once the older boy began opening desk drawers and going through letters, Harry had had enough. "What are you?" he finally blurted out, increasingly disturbed by watching his greatest enemy rifle through his things, making changes as he saw fit.

"That's a rather interesting question, really," Riddle responded with the congenial air of someone who loved to talk about themselves. "But first, let me ask you this: what did Dumbledore tell you of the diary?"

"He didn't, really," Harry frowned, thinking back to his talk with the Headmaster. "He said that you'd been a brilliant student, but he didn't speak much of the diary."

"I hate that man dearly," Riddle smiled pleasantly, "but I will say this for the wizened old bag: he's always been delightfully honest about my abilities."

"Spare me the modesty," Harry mutter to himself.

Riddle turned to him and raised a dark brow. "Sarcasm, Potter?"

"I know," he said quickly, "the refuge of the weak-minded."

"No, I find it's a rather useful tool sometimes," Riddle shook his head. "I'm just surprised to be hearing it in such a young Gryffindor." He paused, then shook himself and returned to the conversation at hand. "Brilliant is a rather apt description of me, and usually meticulous as well, but this time…" he trailed off, his gaze turning inward. "What do you know of immortality, Harry?"

The younger boy sat on the corner of his bed, cautiously keeping an eye on his 'guest'. He didn't like the familiar way that Riddle was addressing him, didn't like the way the other boy was making himself at home in Harry's room, didn't like a single thing about the situation, but he was going to have to play along if he wanted any answers. "I know that the Sorcerer's Stone can produce the Elixir of Life, which makes the drinker immortal," he answered at length. "But it was destroyed last year."

Riddle shook his head. "There are other ways to achieve immortality, Harry. _So many other ways_." He walked quietly to the younger boy, then knelt down until they could meet eye-to-eye. "The method I became particularly interested in was through the creation of Horcruxes. I'll wager Dumbledore never mentioned them to you."

Harry shook his head, careful not to break eye contact with the older boy. Something about Riddle's gaze was dangerously entrancing. Like Dumbledore and Snape, it felt as though he could look right through you to see what you were thinking, but at the same time his dark eyes were oddly soothing. It wasn't until he opened his mouth and Harry could really listen to what the other boy was saying, that he remembered to be afraid of the dangerous man in front of him.

"Creating a Horcrux involves complicated, dark magic but, if it all goes according to plan, the end result is that you've endowed a chosen object with a fraction of your soul. It acts like a tether, keeping you attached to this world, should your body ever become damaged or destroyed," Riddle explained. "The diary you fought was the first Horcrux I ever attempted, but it didn't go entirely right. Part of my soul ended up outside of both the diary and my body, trapped for so many years in the location where I performed that magic: the Chamber of Secrets. I hate to admit any sort of failure," he said quietly, his deep eyes turning contemplative, "but I cannot deny, after fifty years of being something less than a ghost, that some factor of the ritual went wrong."

"But if you were less than a ghost," Harry asked, wishing he could jump to the other side of the room, but he was still caught within the spell of Riddle's eyes, "then how'd you become what you are now?"

"That's where you come in, Harry," he replied, looking pleased that the younger boy had asked such a pertinent question. "You see, when you stabbed the diary with that basilisk fang, it wasn't the soul that you destroyed, it was the dark magic that kept it tied to the diary." His eyes became eerie then, confident but desperately hungry at the same time. "I was able to reclaim that part of myself that had been trapped within those pages before it was lost, and I became," he smiled oddly, "a little more like my old self."

"So," Harry questioned uncertainly, "are you a ghost?"

"Yes and no," Riddle replied, looking thoughtful. "On the one hand, I'm not exactly alive—I don't require any sort of sustenance to continue existing. But, on the other hand, I'm not truly dead, either—for I never died to achieve this state." His gaze turned inward once more, "Somewhere between living and dead; one foot in the grave, while my hands desperately grasp at life." He shook himself, running a ghostly hand over his face. "I don't care to entertain those thoughts, especially when it was my own error that caused them."

"Why are you here?" Harry asked.

But, just as Riddle was about to answer, the door flew open. Aunt Petunia stood just outside the threshold, peering into the room suspiciously. Whatever she saw obviously satisfied her because she gave Harry a superior sneer and asked, "Talking to yourself?" She stayed just long enough for her sneer to turn into a smirk, then left before Harry could defend himself.

He supposed it was almost a blessing that the Dursleys thought he was insane; there was a lot he could get away with under such an excuse. Still, that didn't make him feel any better when he was faced with his arrogant, nearly Malfoy-ish relatives. With a sigh, Harry put the Dursleys out of mind and turned back to Riddle.

Only, for the second time that day, Riddle had vanished.

Harry was left with the very uncomfortable thought that maybe he really _had_ only been talking to himself. His earlier thought, that he was beginning to have very elaborate hallucinations, came back to him. Or worse, his panicked mind supplied, what if Riddle was inside him—another idea that he'd entertained earlier. He looked to his desk, where he noticed that the parchment he'd crumpled and thrown away now laid pristine, just waiting to be written on. But, with dismay, he also noticed that his wardrobe stood ajar and, at the very front of it, was a set of robes he knew he didn't own. How could he reconcile the two? The parchment seemed to suggest that he'd imagined it all, but the robes begged just the opposite. Harry supposed he was capable of transfiguring the robes himself, but he'd never learned how to do that from McGonagall and he would have gotten a Ministry letter for Underage Magic by now.

Was he delusional, or being haunted?

"Perhaps I'd better write that letter to Dumbledore after all," Harry decided, taking up his quill. He'd been hesitant before, he knew Dumbledore's time was precious, but it wasn't just a solitary occurrence anymore. He'd dreamt of Riddle last night—rather disturbingly—then he'd seen the older boy in his kitchen, and just now they'd shared a rather extensive conversation. Even more troubling was that during both visits in the Dursleys house, Riddle had displayed enduring magical abilities. After all, the Dursleys had noticed the platter of sausages shattering and, as Harry looked over his room, he saw small reminders of Riddle's presence.

The question boiled down, once more, to Harry's sanity. Perhaps there was a way that he could test the waters, so to speak. He'd talked with Riddle for quite a while, about things that he couldn't have possibly known; if he asked about something and the answer he received was confused, then Harry would know that he'd imagined the whole thing. On the other hand, if the answer came back alarmed, then he knew he had a fight ahead of him.

_Dear Professor Dumbledore,_

_There are so many questions I have for you, but I find myself only able to ask one. What do you know of Horcruxes?_

_Anxiously yours,_

_Harry Potter_

* * *

A/N: A lot of you expressed a freaked-out sort of delight at the dream sequence from the previous chapter. To this I can only say two things: One, thank you very much; and, two, be on the lookout for more ink! I fear it shall become something of a theme in this story.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JK Rowling. I claim only artistic license over the shaky thing posing as a plot.


	3. Maestro

Warnings: Horcrux spoilers are pretty much going to happen throughout the story from this point forward, so if you know nothing about year six or seven, you might find this story confusing.

* * *

Chapter Three: Maestro.

Several weeks went by without Harry hearing from either Dumbledore or Tom Riddle. Perhaps, if he was lucky, Riddle would never return so that Dumbledore's reply, if it ever came, would be irrelevant. Still, the Headmaster's silence was beginning to worry him. Had his letter been that upsetting, or was Dumbledore just busy? He was almost inclined to write Hermione, but since he hadn't seen even a hint of Riddle since he'd written to Dumbledore, he didn't exactly feel as though it were a pressing need. But perhaps, the stray thought wandered through his head, he ought to write her anyway; he wouldn't be seeing her again until September, and he remembered how lonely last summer had felt when Dobby had been stealing his letters. And maybe, if he wrote a lot to Ron and all the other Weasleys, it would almost feel like he was at the Burrow instead of Privet Drive. If he kept positive, and stayed in touch with his friends as much as he could, maybe this summer wouldn't be as hellish as the last one had been.

At the back of his mind, though, lurked a nagging thought that Dumbledore's silence was ominous at best, and that he hadn't seen the last of Riddle. Harry had spent the past few weeks jumping at the slightest movements and hesitating before going 'round corners; honestly, he felt like after seeing the dark wizard in his relatives' home, Harry would forever be waiting for him now. Even if it turned out that he'd imagined the whole thing, he would always expect to find Riddle lurking in the shadows, waiting for Harry to let his guard down.

It was, perhaps, that very thought that doomed him from the outset.

_

* * *

Harry stood in the middle of his aunt's garden, staring accusingly at all the weeds that marred the flowerbeds. He felt like he'd spent half his life weeding that stupid plot of land, and yet there were always more weeds around when he finished than when he had started._

_A chilling, lonely sort of sound filled the air then, like a solitary violin playing only half of a duet. It made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. Even more frightening than that, he could hear something chittering, as though hundreds of little beasties were scuttling along the ground. _

_He looked down._

_The grass was covered in black… creatures. They weren't quite spiders, though they certainly had enough legs, and they weren't quite squirrels, though they had the puffy tails. They were curious, almost cute, but when he accidentally stepped on one, it burst in a shower of ink. Harry was just about to start squishing them indiscriminately—he was really starting to hate anything that was made of ink—when he realized that they were weeding the garden for him. Half of their spidery little legs would plant themselves into the ground while the other half took hold of a weed and tugged, then it would bring the greenery to its rodent-like face and eat the weed. Harry's amazement lasted only a few minutes though, because he quickly realized that for every weed they ate, the little creatures doubled in size. _

_Would they take over the garden? What would Aunt Petunia think if she looked out of the house and saw these bizarre animals? _

_The creature closest to him finally reached the size of a small horse and then burst, spraying ink all over Harry and the garden. One after the other, the creatures continued to explode, until Harry was drenched from head to foot and the entire garden looked as though it had been painted black. The lonely violin continued playing until the very last creature had vanished in a cloud of black mist._

"_Don't care for classical music, Harry?" Riddle's smooth and sinister voice inquired from behind him._

_Harry turned, dripping ink as he went, to find the sixteen-year-old sitting on the garden wall, an ancient violin and bow resting in his long-fingered hands. "I don't care for _you_," Harry clarified, trying to clean his hopelessly dirtied glasses. _

"_Ah. Well," Riddle replied pleasantly, "you'll just have to get used to it."_

"_I'm dreaming again, aren't I?" Harry finally realized. He eyed Riddle for a moment. "I suppose this is an improvement though; in the last dream, you were absolutely insane."_

_Riddle raised a hand to his own cheek. "I can be," a manic look filled his wide eyes as he dragged a fingernail across his skin. A thin cut formed from his cheekbone to his chin. "…If you want me to," the cut began to ooze black ink. "I can wrap my hands around your throat again," the violin and bow disappeared as Riddle raised his hands before him, "and strangle you as I deliver cryptic messages about the near future." He ran his hands through his hair, then straightened his robes. "Or," he wiped at the ink staining his cheek until the dark spot vanished, "you can wake up and we'll have a civilized conversation."_

_Harry stared at the darkest wizard he had ever faced. He had come against Voldemort twice in the past, once as a baby and then once again during his first year of Hogwarts. He couldn't say much about their first meeting, since he had been quite young at the time, but he remembered Voldemort clearly from their second meeting. He'd been less than a man, a parasite attached to the back of another man's head, using the threat of his long-disbanded power in order to survive. Even as the wreck he now was, he was frightening. But Riddle… Riddle was worse somehow. It wasn't the air of vitality or the power and knowledge that he wore around himself like a cloak. There was something that Tom Riddle had, some extra mentality that Voldemort did not possess, and it made Riddle a hundred times more dangerous than Voldemort had ever seemed. Riddle was just as willing to hurt himself as he was to hurt others; he was off-putting but, at the same time, Harry couldn't help but listen to what he had to say. Deceit had found a home in the low tones of Riddle's voice, it was plain for anyone to hear, but the undercurrent of gentle persuasion trapped listeners like a spider web trapped flies._

"_What I really want is for you to go away," Harry finally answered, wiping away a droplet of ink that had been about to roll into his eye._

"_But Harry," Riddle slid gracefully from the wall, coming to stand not two feet from the younger boy, "don't you want answers?" He reached out a hand until he was nearly grasping Harry's chin. "I'm willing to bet that your beloved Dumbledore didn't tell you what you wanted to know. If he even told you anything at all, that is."_

_Harry cringed inwardly. Riddle had guessed much too close to the truth. He did want answers and Dumbledore hadn't given them. Now he had what was possibly his best source of information freely volunteering to tell him what he wanted to know, if he was only brave enough to seize the opportunity. Gryffindor courage could only take him so far, and there was always the fear that Riddle's knowledge, being as dark as it surely was, would somehow be intrinsically corruptive. Not to mention that Harry didn't trust Riddle enough not to lie._

"_Wouldn't you rather have something than nothing?" the older boy coaxed. "Even if what you have isn't wholly true, it's better than having nothing at all, isn't it?"_

_Harry was left with the uncomfortable feeling that Riddle was reading his thoughts, but his logic—warped though it was—made a strange kind of sense to Harry. He had spent his whole life having nothing, and if it turned out that he'd imagined the entire wizarding world in his loneliness, he'd be more than happy to take that lie because, even if it wasn't true, it was more than he'd ever had before._

_Riddle smiled brightly. "Ready to wake up, my young Gryffindor?"_

* * *

"I don't trust you," Harry blurted as soon as he opened his eyes. His room was still dark, but it had the gray edge of pre-dawn lighting the windowsill. Hedwig stood silent on her perch, having already gone to sleep after a secret night of hunting. The room was hushed with early-morning quiet; it was normal, and yet, somehow not. In the shadows, Harry thought he saw something move, but when he turned his head he found Riddle sitting beside him, leaning casually on his desk chair.

Riddle raised a dark brow at his outburst.

"I just wanted that clear," Harry flushed, never more painfully aware of their age difference than now.

"I don't expect you to trust me," Riddle smiled. "Trust is something that must be earned, and I find that prospect challenging since I've apparently tried to murder you on more than one occasion." Something ominous in his tone implied that he enjoyed a good challenge.

Harry's green eyes narrowed on the older boy as he fumbled around for his glasses. "What do you mean, 'apparently'? It's not as though any of that was just some rumor you heard; I was there, and you definitely tried to kill me."

Riddle sighed. "The first and second attempts were by a future incarnation of me, and the third attempt was by the diary. So in a sense it _was_ me, without actually being," he gestured importantly at himself, "_me_." He sighed again at the younger boy's confused look. "It all goes back to the Horcruxes, Harry. Do you remember what I said about them?"

He nodded slowly, thinking over their previous conversation for a moment. "You can place parts of your soul into an object to achieve a type of immortality."

"Well remembered," Riddle praised quietly. "What else did I say?"

"It didn't go as planned," Harry continued. "Your soul was broken up into three parts, instead of only two."

"You're a better student than I thought, Potter," Riddle smiled. "What you see before you is two fractions of a soul pieced back together. I'm not Voldemort as you know him, and I'm not entirely the memory from the diary that you faced off against. I was a sort of phantom stuck in the Chamber of Secrets, but once I was able to reclaim the power of the diary, I became something of a new entity." He shrugged, "In neither my phantom form, nor the form you see now, have I tried to kill you; _other_ parts of my soul did that."

"How many bits of your soul are wandering around out there?" Harry asked, gesturing out the window. "Should I be on the lookout for possessed lamp-posts or demented library books that want me dead?" As though the world outside of Number Four Privet Drive were listening to the conversation, something flew through the open window. Harry ducked as a large barn owl circled the room, then landed on the back of Riddle's chair, which was disconcerting since Riddle was transparent.

"It looks like a school owl," the older boy commented, running a ghostly hand over the bird's feathers—whether it actually felt the touch was questionable. "Dumbledore finally deigns to answer you."

It had to be Dumbledore's response, Harry thought excitedly; his supply list usually came on his birthday, and that wasn't for a few more days. But, another thought assailed him, did he want Riddle there while he read it? It seemed wrong somehow, to read something from Dumbledore while in the presence of a young Voldemort. Harry stood from his bed and crossed to the other side of the room. "This is between me and the Professor," he said firmly, watching as the owl glided from the chair and came to rest in front of him. "I don't want you reading it."

"But your moment of truth has arrived at last, Harry," Riddle smiled. "All your questions about whether you're going insane or if I'm really here, and why, are about to be answered. Unless," he mocked a sad little frown and paused, his dark eyes glinting with humor. "Unless Dumbledore has decided that it's in _your_ best interest not to know."

"Dumbledore's not like that!" Harry defended hotly.

"Then go ahead," Riddle replied, looking smug as he watched Harry pace. "If you're so confident in him, open the letter and read it."

The owl was nearly as persistent as Riddle. It hopped after Harry doggedly, following him across the room, one leg perpetually extended for him to take its letter, looking as though it were doing some strange little owl dance. With a quiet growl, Harry extended his arm for it. Chittering gratefully, the owl settled on his arm and stuck out its leg once more.

"Go on," Riddle urged.

Harry's first nasty shock came when he realized that the letter the owl was holding was, in fact, the same one that he had sent to Dumbledore in the first place. It was wrinkled and worn around the edges though, so the Headmaster must have read it. With some relief, Harry scanned the note and noticed that Dumbledore had written something at the very bottom of the parchment. Excited to finally hear something, he read:

_Life is a strange thing, Harry, full of many paths. Trust me when I say that this is one path you do not want to venture down, for your own sake._

_Albus Dumbledore_

"You look disappointed," Riddle observed casually.

"Shut up," Harry whispered as he tried to tamp down the frustration he felt at his second nasty shock. He had only spoken with Dumbledore a handful of times in the past, but he had always felt as though the older wizard had been incredibly forthcoming with information. Why not now? Why, when Harry felt he needed guidance the most, was Dumbledore suddenly silent?

"You see, Harry?" Riddle said quietly, coming to stand before the younger boy. "I was right. Dumbledore is a kind and honest man," his lips curled in disgust, "but only when it suits his own purposes. He didn't consider under what circumstances you might ask such a question, didn't bother to ask why you wanted to know; he just assumed the worst of you, which means you're no longer privileged enough to warrant his time."

"You said it was complicated magic, right?" Harry struggled to reason. "I'm only twelve, he probably figured I'm too young to know, not to mention that it's dark."

Riddle knelt before Harry, his black hair shadowing his dark eyes. "And if your life had depended on his _timely_, honest, _informative_ response? What then, Harry?" He reached out a ghostly hand to grasp Harry's shoulder. His touch wasn't cold, like a normal ghost, but it wasn't warm like a living person's, either. "He would have failed you—he _has_ failed you, not the other way around. You should never feel ashamed or think yourself wicked for asking questions; it's Dumbledore's own insufficiencies that lead him not to trust you."

"He does trust me," Harry protested weakly.

Riddle looked at him with something approaching pity. "And if you ask him again? What do you think he'd do if you persisted?"

Harry shook his head, suddenly feeling cold.

"Dumbledore is a powerful wizard," the older boy said carefully, "and he has a lot of connections. It would be child's play for him if he wanted to find a way to silence you, young and untrained as you are."

Harry pulled his baggy nightshirt tight around him, and backed away from Riddle.

"I know how you feel, Harry. You're lost, confused; you suddenly find yourself with no one to turn to." The dark wizard stood to his full height, towering over the younger boy. "I can tell you what you want to know; I can answer your questions."

"I could ask the Weasleys," Harry countered, backing up further until he was pressed against the wall.

"And if they assumed the worst of you, too?" Riddle asked, standing still. "How many friends are you willing to lose for your answers, Harry Potter?"

"I don't trust you," Harry snapped angrily.

"I don't expect you to," Riddle repeated. "But I do think you know when you've been backed into a corner. You asked your precious Dumbledore for help, and he turned his back on you. You're alone, cast into doubt, with nothing but questions to keep you company."

The green-eyed boy shook his head again. He had friends—the Weasley family, Hermione, Neville, and all the other Gryffindors at Hogwarts—he wasn't alone. And yet… the weight of being an orphan, of having no proper family of his own pressed down on him in ways that it hadn't since he'd found out he was a wizard. Dumbledore's silence had broken something in his confidence, had turned him from The Boy Who Lived back into The Boy Who Lived In The Cupboard Under The Stairs. Harry Potter, the forgotten orphan.

"_I'm_ here, Harry," Riddle interrupted his thoughts soothingly, "and I will tell you _anything_ you want to know."

"Why are you here?" Harry asked desperately. "And where do you go when you aren't here?"

"Little Hangleton," he replied readily. "This time, at least. I was looking for something, you see, and it took some effort to acquire it." Riddle pulled something out of thin air and showed it to Harry. It was a ring made out of roughly banded gold, and set with a black stone that looked to have a coat of arms etched into it. Unlike the boy holding it, the ring was entirely solid; it was strange to see someone so transparent hold an opaque object. "Do you know what this is?"

Harry was about to shake his head when a horrible thought crept up on him. What if, in his increasing fear of death, Voldemort had created a multitude of Horcruxes? The ghostly Riddle before him had already said that he had gained strength by absorbing the soul that had been released from the diary. If that were true, what was to stop him from gaining even more strength by collecting whatever other Horcruxes were out there? Could he once again become a living, breathing sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle if he reclaimed enough of his soul?

"It's a Horcrux," Harry answered numbly, after his thoughts had quieted down.

"Very good," Riddle replied, sounding pleased. "This was my second one, made shortly after the diary."

"Second?" the green-eyed boy cringed, his fears slowly being realized. "How many did you make?"

The dark wizard smiled, "Seven, including the diary."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Harry asked, his jaw dropping. "I could go out and destroy them all now."

"I promised to answer all your questions, didn't I?" Riddle said easily. "Besides, you haven't the resources, the knowledge, or the power to destroy my Horcruxes. The diary fell into your lap, and you managed to get lucky." He chuckled. "Not to mention that, aside from this ring, you have no idea what the remaining objects might be."

"I could tell Dumbledore," Harry insisted, "I bet he would know what to look for."

"Even if you were afraid that he thought you were turning dark?" Riddle gave a pointed look to the letter that had just arrived moments ago.

Harry's throat tightened. His first instinct was to turn to his Headmaster, but he didn't want to cause any more trouble than he already apparently had.

"As to why I'm here," Riddle carried on before Harry had enough time to over-think his position, "I should think that's obvious. I'm here because of you." His dark eyes took on a disbelieving light as he continued, "The wizarding world treats you like a prince, and yet there's so much you don't know, so much they aren't willing to teach you. They wouldn't teach me, either, Harry; they don't bother with their orphans, no matter how important."

"I'm just supposed to believe that you're here to guide me," Harry laughed, somewhat hysterically, "out of the _goodness_ of your own heart?"

"You don't have to believe anything I say," the ghostly boy replied. "But then," a dark note entered his voice, "that leaves you with nothing." He looked at Dumbledore's letter once more. "Doesn't it, Harry?"

* * *

A/N: I'm updating this story like crazy, aren't I? This whole thing has just crawled under my skin, and I'm eager to see where it takes me. Also, I did some rather unoriginal cover-art for this story that you can see over at deviantart.

I want to make something clear, because a lot of people have expressed concern over this. Trophies will be a darker themed story, but it will have as little angst in it as I can get away with. I don't care for angst as a genre because, personally, I think it makes a story drag rather than flow. There will be no mentions of rape or excessive child abuse; I'm trying to stick to Rowling as closely as possible in that respect. And no—as I already mentioned in the first chapter—this story is _not_ romance. Riddle's physical nature is just designed to disturb people or catch them with their guards down.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I own the book series, but not the rights to them. Anything here that is familiar as having come from the Harry Potter series belongs to JK Rowling.


	4. Temptations

Chapter Four: Temptations.

_Nothing_. The word rattled around in Harry's head, dredging up all manner of unpleasant memories. Ten years flashed through his mind—ten years of wearing ratty old hand-me-downs that would fit an elephant sooner than him, ten years of eating table scraps like a dog, ten years of running from gangs of bullies, ten years of being resented by his family instead of being loved. Ten years without friends, without affection, without knowing that his parents had been a witch and wizard and that they had died to save his life. For ten years, he had lived in a cupboard, the grim specter of a boy who had _nothing_. He would always be thankful to Dumbledore for saving him from that hell, but… when he really thought about it, the facts didn't add up. Dumbledore had known he was living in a cupboard—his first few Hogwarts letters had been addressed there!—but the Professor had never mentioned it. At first Harry had been grateful for that, it would have been embarrassing if someone like Malfoy had caught wind of that fact, but after a while it had started to bother him. Didn't Dumbledore care? Granted, he was a very powerful wizard with incredible demands on his time, but he was still Headmaster at Hogwarts, so the students had to be his top priority. For that matter, why hadn't he _ever_ checked on Harry in the past? Why had he waited until Harry was nearly eleven to even get into contact with him?

Because he hadn't been old enough to go to Hogwarts until then. The simple truth slapped Harry in the face. Dumbledore, great man though he was, couldn't be bothered to keep track of anyone who was not within his castle walls, and Harry had grown up in abject misery and ignorance because of that. So, in the end, Dumbledore hadn't given him anything that he hadn't already been entitled to. And now, when Harry was faced with the greatest challenge of his life, the Headmaster failed him once more. He needed knowledge and guidance if he was ever to find some way of defeating—or getting rid of, at the very least—Tom Riddle. And yet…

And yet here was Riddle, offering to answer anything Harry could think to ask. The older boy expected nothing in return—not allegiance, or even trust. In Dumbledore's silence, the Heir of Slytherin had decided to offer _his_ services. It was tempting, too tempting to make a grab at the proffered knowledge without thought to the consequences. But Riddle was a master of the cunning that his House boasted; it would be all too easy for him to mislead Harry.

How was he supposed to protect himself if no one would teach him?

'They wouldn't teach me, either,' Riddle's earlier statement echoed back to him. Had the older boy gotten tired of never being answered properly; had it been that search for answers that had lead him down the darkest paths known to the wizarding world? And were the two boys really so similar that Harry's own thirst for knowledge would doom him to follow the same path, or could Harry listen to all that Riddle had to say and still remain unchanged?

It was a risk he would have to take. Riddle wasn't going anywhere, that much was apparent, and Dumbledore had already proven that he wasn't going to help matters. If Harry wanted answers, he was going to have to ask the dark wizard, pray the older boy answered him truthfully, and hope he came out of this situation as the same Gryffindor he had gone in.

"W-why," he stammered, then stopped. If he was going to do this, he would do it with a strong heart. "Why _gather_ your Horcruxes?" Harry asked. "I thought the whole point of making them was so that you could hide your soul."

"At first, yes," Riddle agreed, smiling briefly as though savoring his small victory over Harry. "But now I find them more a nuisance than a blessing. Besides, where better to hide them than in plain sight? After all, who's going to approach Harry Potter when looking for the Horcruxes of Lord Voldemort?"

"But _I_ could destroy them!" the younger boy insisted.

"Have a handy supply of Basilisk fangs around, do you?" Riddle raised a brow.

"Is that what it takes?" Harry asked, determination in his voice. "The only method to destroy them?"

Riddle shrugged, a dangerous look entering his dark eyes. "It's not the only way, but for someone as young and untrained as you, it's the easiest."

Harry could tell the older wizard wasn't likely to say anything more on that score, so he asked another question that was burning in the back of his throat. "Why did you make the Horcruxes in the first place?"

"It's natural to fear death," Riddle answered after a strange pause. "Most people do. It's the final, unexplained journey. Do our spirits carry on when we die, or do we simply cease to exist?" He frowned, his eyes turning thoughtful, "No one really knows, and I couldn't accept that uncertainty. But my true obsession," he locked his dark eyes with Harry, "didn't begin until I had stepped onto platform nine and three-quarters."

"What does the platform have to do with any of this?" the younger boy asked, finally pushing away from the wall and approaching Riddle. He kept his nightshirt tight about him though; he couldn't completely shake off his defensive posturing around the ghostly boy.

"Everything," Riddle replied quietly. "It was on that platform that Lord Voldemort truly emerged." His eyes became glassy, both reminiscent and power-hungry. "I felt like, for that one brief moment in time, the world had stopped. I stood alone on a steam-clouded platform, approaching my destiny. A universe of possibilities had opened, and I alone was brave enough to grab at it."

"So… everyone else was just there for moral support, then?" Harry snorted disparagingly, bravado rising. "You were the only one being admitted into Hogwarts?"

Riddle ignored him. "Of course, it seemed entirely different after coming back." His voice turned dark, almost angry, "The platform was a desolate place, a field of broken dreams where the weary were sentenced to damnation: never to feel that spark of life again. I thought how unbearably awful it would be to die on that platform, to have my spirit trapped there for an eternity. Stuck somewhere between the waiting wonders of the wizarding world and the dull monotony of the muggle world." His eyes widened blankly as his tone took on an peculiar edge, "If there was one thing I abhorred the very thought of, it was having to stay at that platform as the years marched forward, watching the students come and go, knowing their journeys would take them to Hogwarts, while I was doomed to languish at King's Cross, eternally frozen in that first step of the journey."

Harry frowned. He had felt the same way when Dobby had sealed the platform at the start of the year. He'd been nervous, panicked at the thought of everyone going to Hogwarts while he and Ron were stuck in London. "You were afraid of being left behind?" he finally asked.

"Perhaps," Riddle mused quietly. "I was forever being left behind as a child." His voice became high and cold, "'Don't play with poor little orphan Riddle, he's a _freak'_."

The green-eyed boy suddenly felt sick. Hadn't Dudley and his gang said the very same thing about Harry? The similarities between him and Riddle were numerous and disturbing.

Riddle noticed his pinched expression, and his eyes lost their glassy sheen as he refocused on his young audience. "By the look on you face, I daresay you know exactly what that feels like, Harry." He paused for a moment, looking solemn, then shook himself, as though chasing away the past. "Of course it didn't particularly matter in the end, because _I_ ended up leaving _myself_ behind. Horcruxes seemed like a brilliant idea, until that first one went wrong."

"Went wrong?" Harry questioned vaguely, remembering the horrors that Riddles's diary had wrought; in his opinion, there was no possible way it could have gone right.

Riddle nodded. "To create a Horcrux you must first split your soul. The easiest way to do that is to commit murder, but the problem is that, even after you've done so, you _can_ remain whole. Not sane or well adjusted, by any means, but still whole," he explained, sounding so very much like a professor describing some beginners' spell that it was chilling. "It isn't until you perform the dark magic needed to transfer your soul into another object that you really become divided, become something more twisted and evil than a mere murderer."

Which meant, Harry thought with dread, that Riddle already been a murderer when he was still quite young. He'd known about Myrtle, of course, but he had always assumed that had been an accident. Myrtle had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the basilisk's deadly gaze had been uncontrollable. So he hadn't really killed her, so much as just created the circumstances of her death. But now Harry knew that to create his awful diary in the first place, the older boy had actually had to have killed someone, had to have thought and rethought what he was planning to do, and then, with the malice of forethought, coldly snuffed out someone's life forever.

"You have probably heard it said that Tom Riddle was charming and charismatic," the dark wizard interrupted his thoughts.

Harry nodded numbly.

"And you've probably wondered how brilliant Riddle went from such a compelling figure, to a complete nutter who tries to gain support by terrifying everyone," Riddle smiled strangely, as though he found this transition funny somehow.

"I had," Harry agreed, surprising himself. When Dumbledore had spoken of Riddle, Harry had gotten a distinct picture of a horrifically brilliant young man who was power-hungry, but very exact in his actions and quite careful about covering his tracks; sort of like an evil Hermione or Percy. That hadn't been the impression the diary-form of Riddle had given him, although that may have had something to do with Harry frantically dodging a basilisk at the time. Still, he had wondered at the progression from smooth Tom Riddle, to insane Lord Voldemort.

"When I tried to put myself into the diary," Riddle continued, "something didn't go as planned. The magic required to create a Horcrux strips you of your humanity; I didn't consider myself to have much in the way of humanity to begin with, but I hadn't counted on things like sense and reason to be considered a part of that." He sighed, frustration lacing his voice. "Half of my soul was interred in the diary, but a small part of me, a part that I realize now I really couldn't afford to lose, died that day. I was trapped," he chuckled humorlessly, "the ghost of Tom Riddle's intellect."

"But at least it wasn't the platform," Harry offered, not sure why he was trying to be consolatory. This was, after all, the boy who had grown up to murder Harry's parents, as well as countless others.

"True," Riddle nodded, looking thoughtful, "I _was_ at Hogwarts," his voice, which had finally reached conversational tones, turned dark once more, a nearly hysterical note ringing out, "but I was confined to the Chamber. Stuck for fifty years in a room with nothing but a basilisk and an army of leaking pipes. It really isn't much of an improvement, when you think about it. In some ways, it was probably worse. At least at the platform, I would have had company a few times a year."

"You had the basilisk," Harry offered brightly.

Riddle gave him a look that clearly said he didn't appreciate Harry's patronizing cheerfulness. "Which is a truly remarkable creature but, unfortunately, one of the few in the animal kingdom who doesn't seem to have any sort of extra perception when it comes to ghosts." He looked away for a moment, staring off into nothingness, his eyes hazy and unfocused. "Until I was able to absorb the half of my soul that you released from the diary, I had no way of manifesting a form; I was just a free-floating miasma of calm logic and charisma." A strange look entered his eyes as they slowly cleared, and he smiled eerily. "Though you destroyed my diary, you did—in a certain sense—save me, Harry Potter. Can you appreciate the irony, my young friend?"

Harry's anger was instantaneous. "I'm not your friend!" he hissed hotly, careful not to bellow lest he wake the Dursleys. The older boy's increasing familiarity was beginning to trouble him.

Riddle's smile grew. "What would Dumbledore think if he knew that, in trying to destroy your greatest enemy, you gave him new life?"

"I wouldn't exactly call _this_ new life," Harry muttered, carefully avoiding the subject of Dumbledore. "Sure you seem to have more of your soul than Voldemort does—if I'm understanding all this Horcrux business properly—but you're still all ghostly! It's not as though you have a _physical_ form."

"Oh no?" Riddle questioned, his eerie smile nearly splitting his face in two. And Harry watched, horrified, as the ghost before him _changed_. The air snapped and crackled as grayish tones gave way to pale skin, as blue silhouettes gave way to neat, dark hair and dark eyes. He watched as the faded memory of robes became real cloth once more, until Tom Marvolo Riddle stood in Number Four Privet Drive just as solidly as Harry did.

"How?" Harry demanded angrily. "How can you just create a body when even Voldemort can't?" They were the same person, so how was possible that Riddle seemed able to do more in a month than Voldemort had done in eleven years?

"Lord Voldemort lost more than he could ever guess when he split himself into so many Horcruxes," Riddle answered, flexing his fingers. "Mind you, this isn't permanent." He continued to test his body, rolling his shoulders and moving his head, until he finally stood before the younger boy in detached amusement. "But I can abandon and generate it at will."

"Why didn't you before?" Harry asked. "If you've been able to take this form since you left the Chamber, then why haven't you?"

Something flashed in Riddle's eyes, something close to… miscalculation? "I didn't want to alarm you unduly," he replied, then smiled. "I suppose strangling you wasn't the best tactic, was it?"

"No," the green-eyed boy answered, his hands subconsciously going to his throat, "it wasn't. But then again, there's really no way you can present yourself that I won't find alarming. I know who you are, after all."

Riddle suddenly held out his hand, the ring laying innocently within his palm. "Take it," he offered quietly. "If I'm so alarming, then take an advantage."

Harry stared at the innocuous piece of jewelry in fascination. "It's tainted with you."

"I assure you, it's perfectly safe," the dark wizard chuckled.

"Why would you give this to me?" Harry asked suspiciously. "You said you didn't care whether I trusted you or not, so why would you put a part of your soul into the hands of your enemy?"

"Because I want us to meet as equals, Harry," Riddle replied, the familiar hungry look entering his eyes again. "If you need some sort of advantage over me, then so be it, but we will be equals. Besides," he coaxed, his voice taking on a disturbingly gentle tone, "what should my motives matter to you? I'm offering you one of my Horcruxes, the things you've so desperately wanted to destroy since you learned about them." He rolled the ring along his palm, until he had caught it with his long-fingers, offering it to Harry once more. "It would be yours to do with as you wish."

If Riddle's knowledge had been tempting, it was nothing in comparison to this. The ring was calling to him, an easy way to weaken his parents' murderer, and yet… There was really no way to win. If he protected the Horcrux, Voldemort could never truly be defeated, but if he destroyed it, Riddle could gain more power. Unless… unless he made sure that Riddle was nowhere to be seen when he destroyed it; then the soul would be released with no one to reclaim it, making Riddle fundamentally incomplete no matter how many Horcruxes he found. And once he was back at Hogwarts, Harry could sneak into the Chamber of Secrets for another basilisk fang, so destroying the ring was possible, if he was careful.

But was it tainted? If he wore it, would it drain him as the diary had Ginny, or would it warp his senses until he was no better than Riddle? A chance like this wasn't likely to ever come around again; he couldn't turn the offer down. But the worry still nagged at him. Perhaps, if he wore it on a chain, made sure it never touched his skin, he would be all right; after all, the diary had only had power because Ginny had given it to him.

Riddle held the ring out, the very image of a tempting devil. There was something else at work here, Harry thought. Riddle had to have his own reasons for offering up one of his Horcruxes, something more complex than simply wanting to put Harry at ease. Even with that in mind, the green-eyed boy reached for the ring. It was warm to the touch, though he was sure that Riddle's hands, pale as they were, were quite cool.

"You see, Harry?" the older boy said calmly. "Safe as can be."

Something charged through Harry then, like an electric shock that spread from his fingers to his toes, curling up around his heart until it was hard to breath.

"As safe as can be _expected_, that is," Riddle's sinister voice hissed in his ear.

* * *

A/N: I liked Dumbledore a lot, especially early on in the series, but the fact that he turned a blind eye to Harry's blatant neglect/abuse at home always kind of bothered me. So this isn't really an anti-Dumbledore or a Dumbledore-bashing fic, I just like to point out that he makes mistakes. He is, after all, only human.

This chapter was a bit shorter than the others, but there was a lot of exposition to get through. The action should start picking up with the next chapter.

By the way, if you really want to set the mood for this story, I recommend listening to The Half-Blood Prince soundtrack (it's what I listen to while I write it).

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series or anything associated with it. All this lovely stuff belongs to JK Rowling, I just like to fill in the blank details.


	5. Blood and Information

Chapter Five: Blood and Information.

_Harry found himself in a long corridor lined with doors. The walls were a grayish-cream, the floor was a dull black, and the oak doors were stained with age. A sense of bleak hopelessness hung in the air, along with the whimpers and laughter of small children. Here and there a door stood open, allowing brief glimpses of imaginary tea parties or of small gangs bullying those who were weaker. Like a neon sign flaring to life in the back of his mind, Harry knew what sort of place he was in._

_An orphanage. _

_As he wandered down the depressingly sterile hallway, dodging reckless and bewildered children, Harry briefly considered that this very well could have been his fate. If it hadn't been for the Dursleys, he would have grown up in a desolate place like this. Not that growing up in a cupboard was much of an improvement, but there had always been a certain hope that one day things would be better. Here, though, the air was thick with resignation, as though these children knew beyond a doubt that this was as good as it would ever get, and to hope for more was simply foolish. _

_The hallway finally dead-ended, but just as Harry was about to turn back around, he felt something drip down the back of his neck. He pressed a hand to the wetness and was almost more horrified to find his fingers coming back covered in ink rather than blood, as he had first feared. Looking up, his eyes beheld a terrible sight. There, up in the rafters, an ink-covered rabbit swung gruesomely from a rope, slowly dripping as it quietly arced through the air._

"_He argued with me," a quiet voice said behind him. "I told him to be careful of what he said, but he wouldn't listen."_

_Harry hesitantly turned around; the boy he found was all the more disturbing for how normal he seemed. He couldn't have been more than nine or ten years old, a pale boy with dark hair and eyes, dressed in a drab gray uniform. The boy was off-putting somehow, though; perhaps it was the air of calm detachment around him, or his abnormally penetrating eyes. Whatever it was, it was plain that this was no ordinary boy. It was also becoming quite clear to Harry that whatever had sparked Tom Riddle's trek through brutality and dark magic had been with him at a very young age._

"_The rabbit?" he asked delicately, unsure of whether he was talking to a ten year old or the _real_ Riddle._

"_Billy Stubbs," the young boy answered calmly. "He argued with me. I don't remember what about anymore, but I told him he didn't want to make me mad. He didn't listen, so he had to be punished."_

"_You hung his pet for revenge?" Harry asked disbelievingly. "Doesn't that seem a bit extreme?"_

_Riddle ignored him. "I still have the rope." He pulled a length of frayed twine out of his pocket, the ashy-brown strands stained red and black._

_Harry quickly looked back up to the rabbit, only to find that it had disappeared. The rope Riddle held was, indeed, the rope that had ended the poor animal's life. "Why?" he asked, disgusted. "What on earth would possess you to keep such a revolting reminder?"_

_The boy smiled faintly, his eyes lit with dark glee. "Why not?" he asked brightly. "We all like to get trophies for our accomplishments."_

"_This isn't an accomplishment," Harry shook his head. "It's a sickness." He looked up to the rafters once more, blindly staring at where the rabbit had once been. It was apparent that, even at this young age, the madness that had become Voldemort was already present in Riddle. His fall into the darkest depths of humanity hadn't had anything to do with his magic or schooling at all, those had just been the fire and fuse. The boy had always been disturbed, finding out he was a wizard had only made him more dangerous. "How can this seem all right to you?"_

_Riddle studied him for a moment, frowning. "Every force must have an opposing force," he replied with a wisdom beyond his apparent age. "Stubbs did something he shouldn't have, and he was rightly punished for it. Our actions must all be answered for."_

"_Then what of your actions?" Harry asked critically._

"_I was punished accordingly, though Mrs. Cole never had any proof that I was the one who did it," he shrugged. "In a perfect world, it wouldn't have mattered. Stubbs and I created a complete cycle of force and opposition. He opposed me, so I opposed him and the matter was resolved." He sneered, "But this is not a perfect world, and a hierarchy of power permeates all things. To be immune, to live as close to perfection as possible, you have to rise to the top."_

_Even at this age, even without knowledge of magic, Riddle was power-hungry, Harry thought with a shiver. He had never fallen from grace, never defected from the side of good; Riddle had been born in darkness and had never been innocent or ethical enough to leave it._

_Riddle's eyes grew blank for a moment, then cleared with a wicked gleam as ink began to drip from his suddenly wet hair. His lips twisted into a mocking smile as black rivulets trailed down his face, and he threw his arms wide open. "Do you like it, Harry?" he gestured grandly. "The muggle-infested pit I was forced to grow up in."_

"_Why are we here?" the green-eyed boy asked. "Why are you showing me this?"_

"_It's at the front of my thoughts, I suppose," Riddle shrugged. "Your relatives make me remember what it was like growing up."_

"_What did you do to me?" he demanded, sorely tired of being dragged through the other boy's twisted imaginings._

"_So many questions, Harry," the older boy tsked. "You have more answers than you think."_

_Harry glared accusingly. "You used the ring to trick me."_

"_No. The ring really is yours to do with as you wish," Riddle corrected, then shrugged. "But I did need something from you, yes." Ink began to drip down his front, slicking and staining his clothes until the little black drops began to pool at his feet._

"_And what was that?" Harry growled._

_Ink bled across the floor until it had covered the whole ground, almost making Harry lose his footing. "Blood," Riddle's smile grew sharp, "and information."_

* * *

"_Blood_?" Harry sputtered, jerking awake. "What do you mean, you needed blood?" he demanded, belatedly realizing that he was slumped on the floor at the sixteen-year-old Riddle's feet.

"You are not completely unprotected, Harry," the older boy shrugged, offering a hand. "The wizarding world would not allow it."

The wizarding world, Harry thought, or Dumbledore? How was he to trust anything the Headmaster or Riddle said? They had both recently betrayed his trust, in different ways; granted, Riddle's was more extreme, but Dumbledore's felt more… personal. Despondency swamped through him for a moment—was he more alone in this world than he'd thought?—but he eventually accepted Riddle's help off the floor. The dark boy's hand was unexpectedly warm—considering that he was trapped somewhere between life and death—and there was a surprising firmness to his grip. It mirrored Riddle's personality so well that Harry had to stifle a chuckle; he was warmer than one expected, downright congenial if one disregarded what he said, but there was a resoluteness about him, an unyielding core that could wrap around those who came too close, trapping them in a haze of convoluted logic. Tom Riddle was lightning-fast quicksand in the middle of a welcoming oasis: dark deeds and killing intent hidden by a compelling exterior.

"How am I protected that it make _you_ need my _blood_?" Harry questioned, quickly distancing himself from the older boy.

Riddle bent delicately and picked the ring up off the floor. "Blood wards," he answered, straightening. "They are meant to protect you from those who would do you harm, by setting up a barrier based on the blood that you and your relatives share." A smile flitted over his lips, "But, despite what many people think, these wards are easy enough to get around; all I needed was your blood."

"Then you mean to do me harm," Harry accused, watching as the older boy twirled the ring between his long fingers.

"Ah," Riddle crooned, "it's there that we hit a bit of a snag. You see, your wards were created with the mind to keep a very specific person out."

"Voldemort," Harry offered quickly.

"Is it bravery or ignorance that allows you to say the name so readily?" Riddle mused quietly, then shook himself of the thought. "Yes, Voldemort. Being a part of him, I cannot exist within these wards without having the necessary blood, regardless of whether I mean to kill you or help you with your Potions homework."

"But you've been here before," the green-eyed boy insisted, "so why were you only _now_ affected by the wards? How did you even get in at all?"

Riddle's smile was so soft and soothing that it was outright alarming. "As a ghost, it didn't matter. How can one hope to keep out a creature that has no blood? As far as the wards were concerned, I didn't exist. Unfortunately," his tone took on a mocking edge of mourning, but his strange grin never changed, "when I took on a more corporeal form, they finally noticed me, and it took a spectacular amount of effort to remain within them, even if my body is little more than a shell. I needed a part of you, if I was to stay." He held up the ring and, for the first time, Harry noticed the crest in its jewel was glowing a dirty red; on one of Riddle's fingers, right where the ring would have rested if he were to wear it, the same crest stood out, looking like a faint tattoo. "Which I now have."

Harry narrowed his eyes, studying the design of the crest. It was unfamiliar in all respects, and he briefly wondered what it stood for before his mind snapped back to the danger in front of him. "And the information?" he asked.

Riddle smiled, as though oddly proud that younger boy had remembered that small detail. "In good time, Harry," he took something out of his pocket, an eerily familiar length of stained rope that he transfigured into a chain to hold the ring, "you shall understand." He threw the necklace over Harry's head, using the chain to jerk the boy closer. "As promised, the ring is yours. However, I wouldn't recommend wearing it on your finger."

Harry tried to jerk away, but the older boy kept him in place. "Let go," he finally snapped, nervous at having such a dark wizard so close to his neck or, indeed, close to him _at all_.

Riddle's dark eyes searched Harry's face. "There's still so much you don't understand, Harry, still so much that people aren't willing to tell you." He let go of the chain, watching as the ring finally settled over Harry's heart. "You need guidance to make it through this world that Dumbledore saw fit to keep you out of for ten years; you need someone who won't judge you even when you ask ugliest questions, someone who won't withhold information from you." He looked the younger boy in the eyes again. "There are so many similarities between us, Harry; did it ever cross you mind that, by giving you the information that I was denied, perhaps I am changing your future from that of my own?"

The younger boy shivered. There were _too_ many similarities between them; it still bothered Harry that they even looked so much alike. Regardless, he couldn't give much weight to what Riddle was saying; if the young Tom Riddle in his dream had been anything like the real one, then Harry knew he _couldn't_ end up the same as Voldemort—he wasn't a sociopath like the rabbit-murdering child. Still, there was nothing to save him from growing to hate Dumbledore or the Ministry, nothing to protect him from falling into darkness as he searched for answers. In a strange way, Riddle was almost providing him a safety net; if he was given dark information from someone as morally reprehensible as the future Lord Voldemort, then he didn't have to worry about being tempted to try anything out. He would know, without a doubt, that if it came from the lips of Tom Marvolo Riddle, it was dark and best left alone. So long as he never learned anything that was intrinsically corruptive, then he ought to be safe.

But could he continue to hold out against Riddle? It was a large concern, especially since he had already been tempted by the older boy's offers on more than one occasion. Riddle was not to be trusted but, at the same time, he was the only one offering information. And there was the fact that Harry had a plan to destroy the Horcruxes; he couldn't weaken Riddle if he didn't have access to the other Horcruxes. No matter how dangerous he was, Riddle had to stay around if Harry had any chance at all to put an end to the terror that Voldemort had instilled in the wizarding world.

Harry thought of himself as a Gryffindor, through and through, but there would always be that part of him that the Sorting Hat had wanted to put in Slytherin. Could the Gryffindor in him remain strong against the evil that surrounded his life, or would his Slytherin side fall prey to temptation?

"So divided, Harry," Riddle's sinister and silky voice crooned. "Who would have ever thought that The-Boy-Who-Lived had so many uncertainties," his eyes glimmered darkly in the weak morning light, "was so filled with opposing forces?"

"I'm not indecisive," Harry snapped, ignoring how scrambled his thoughts felt. "There's no part of me that doesn't agree with the rest."

Riddle raised a brow. "Are you a Slytherin or a Gryffindor?"

The younger boy paused for a moment, suspicious of how Riddle could have known about the Sorting Hat's dilemma, but felt it best not to comment; he probably wouldn't like the answer. "I _chose_ Gryffindor."

"_And why was that_?" Riddle hissed, showing the first real hint of a wicked temper.

Harry stiffened his spine. "Because Slytherin is a dark House, and I wanted nothing to do with it."

"You only had the vaguest conception of what the Houses stood for," Riddle snapped. "No, the real reason you didn't want to be put in Slytherin was because of Malfoy, so don't you dare spout some sort of moral ideology at _me_, Harry Potter. We both know you turned down Slytherin for petty reasons." He shook himself, messily running his hands through his previously neat hair. "But it will always be with you, you know. The qualities that would have made you a good Slytherin won't go away; you'll have to live with them." His dark eyes clouded over, becoming glassy. "And, just when you least expect it, your life is going to depend on those talents that you so readily turn your nose up at, my young Gryffindor."

* * *

A/N; This chapter was brought to you by The Elephant Man Soundtrack and Serenada Schizophrana, so if it seem especially creepy… that's why. (Also, please don't yell at me for animal cruelty. If you remember the sixth book well enough, you'll find that Mrs. Cole mentioned the rabbit murder to Dumbledore when he first came to visit Tom.)

Sorry for the bit of a delay; first it was my birthday, then it was two projects and a test.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and all things associated with him. I own nothing.


	6. Birthday Presents

Chapter Six: Birthday Presents.

"What have you got there, boy?" Aunt Marge demanded, grating on Harry's nerves.

It was turning out to be the worst birthday that Harry had had in a very long time, which was a shame because it had started out so good. Riddle had been gone for a week, leaving him agitated and confused, but mostly grateful for the older boy's absence. After his disturbing insistence that Harry would need Slytherin qualities to survive, and the whole mess that had been brought about by the ring, Harry was glad to be rid of Riddle. Hopefully, he would stay away for good this time, although Harry doubted he was that lucky. Still, it had put him in a fantastic mood. Then, last night, just as he'd been putting away some homework that he'd been doing on the sly, three owls had flown into his room, bearing birthday gifts from his friends. An odd sort of feeling had filled him then, the same feeling he'd gotten during his first Christmas at Hogwarts: like he'd finally found his place in the world.

So, of course, the Dursleys had to find a way to spoil his great mood. That morning he had found out that Aunt Marge was coming for a visit. Marge wasn't actually Harry's aunt by blood, being Uncle Vernon's sister, and Harry hated the woman with a passion. The Dursleys were rotten to him, sure, but Aunt Marge took their cruelty to new heights. He still remembered the time that Ripper, one of Aunt Marge's old bulldogs, chased him up a tree, and she had refused to call him off until well after midnight. He would have been able to forgive that, horrible though it was, if she weren't always so vocal about her dislike for Harry. He was willing to ignore people simply being mean-spirited—that's how he'd managed to go two years without strangling Malfoy, after all—but Aunt Marge said wicked things with the sole intension of hurting Harry, of making him feel like less than he knew he truly was. She had a way of ripping down his defenses and bruising his very heart with the terrible things she said, slandering everything from his mental health to his lineage.

"I asked you a question, boy," Aunt Marge snapped, bringing Harry's thoughts back to the present. "Where did you get that?" She pointed a chubby finger at his chest.

Harry's hand went to pat himself where Aunt Marge was pointing, but quickly veered upward when he realized that Riddle's ring had slipped out the neck of his shirt. Although Riddle had only warned him not to wear it, Harry had gone to great pains not to even touch it with his bare skin; lately he'd taken to wearing two shirts, so that the ring could slip under the top shirt without being seen, and not touch his bare chest. "It was a gift," he replied, slipping it back between his two shirts.

She sneered, "_I_ wouldn't have wasted my money on the likes of you."

Harry had no idea how much the ring was worth monetarily—it could have been made from pure gold for all he knew—but as far as he was concerned its worth stemmed only from the power it gave him over Riddle, and how he could use that to either weaken the older boy or at least meet with him on more equal footing.

"You mustn't blame yourself for the way the boy's turned out," Aunt Marge started loudly, turning to her brother.

With a roll of his eyes, Harry began to think of his new broomstick servicing kit, a birthday present from Hermione, but Aunt Marge's words broke through his defenses occasionally, making him cringe. Just when he thought he was going to have to make a strategic exit, or face losing his temper—which could be very dangerous for a young wizard—he saw something flicker out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head slightly, Harry watched as, like a faded character from an old muggle film, Riddle appeared right behind Aunt Marge. His image flashed and sputtered, revealing a head, then legs and arms, and finally a torso, until the whole of Riddle was standing in the Dursley's living room, transparent once more.

"Who's this?" Riddle asked, a nasty sneer on his face as he looked over Aunt Marge.

Harry became aware of a low-level noise then, steadily growing louder until it broke through his concentration in the form of a shout from Uncle Vernon. "BOY!" he thundered. "I think you'd best go to your room for a while."

Harry looked from Dursley to Dursley, confusedly noting that they each looked a bit frightened, though Aunt Marge managed to look more disgusted than anything else. Behind Marge, Riddle had slowly begun to wander the room, picking up little knick-knacks and making disparaging noises. It was right about when Uncle Vernon's eyes followed the little vase that Riddle was holding, but didn't even spare a glance to the boy holding it, that Harry realized what was going on again. Somehow, in his transparent form Riddle was invisible to the Dursleys, it was possible that they couldn't even hear him. Which really meant that, for the Dursleys at least, Harry had been staring at a point over Aunt Marge's shoulder, looking absolutely horrified at something that wasn't there. And now things were moving behind Uncle Vernon's clone of a sister, and the Dursleys couldn't explain that beyond Harry doing something freakish.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry said quickly, making a dash for his room and praying that Riddle would follow. The older boy didn't seem too likely to be entertained by people who wouldn't react to his presence.

"That boy really is deranged," he heard Aunt Marge mutter as he left the room. "That school you're sending him to… St. Brutus's! Are you sure they don't have any summer sessions?"

Harry reached his room in record time, only to find that Riddle was already there, his dark head bent to examine the birthday cards that Harry hadn't had the heart to put away.

"Is today your birthday, Harry? And here I am without a present for you!" Riddle began humming then, swaying slowly to his tuneless song. His eyes lit up suddenly and he stopped moving. "But I think I know the _perfect_ gift to give." He raised a transparent hand. "Make a wish, Harry," he murmured ominously, "it just might come true."

"I don't want anything from you," the green-eyed boy said hotly.

"You'll change your mind," Riddle stated, a smile lurking about his lips.

A silence fell between them, growing more oppressive by the minute, until Harry was finally prompted to speak. "Why can't they see you?" he asked slowly, pointing to where the Dursleys were likely congregated on the floor below them.

Riddle curled the fingers of his still raised hand, making a fist, then twisted his wrist and opened his fingers back up, releasing a shower of bright sparks. "Muggles?" he mocked, clearly disgusted. "Muggles don't see anything, Harry. They ignore the fantastic things around them, not because they can't see them, but because _they don't want to_. Your relatives can see me just as clearly as you can, but they don't believe in flickering ghost-boys, so their minds simply force them to ignore me."

"They don't believe in magic either, but they still noticed me do small things when I was younger," Harry argued.

"They do believe in magic, Harry," Riddle replied, taking a seat on Harry's bed, "otherwise you wouldn't have been punished for it, you wouldn't have been abused in the hopes that they could force the magic out of you, and they wouldn't be living in fear of you now."

"The Dursleys aren't afraid of me," Harry laughed.

"Aren't they?" Riddle asked quietly, hooking one foot under his knee as he leaned back on his arms.

"No," the green-eyed boy said firmly. "They know that I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school."

"Ah," Riddle crooned, "but there's always the chance that you might want revenge more than you want to return to Hogwarts. How are they to know how much you love school as opposed to how much you hate them? Do you think your boar of an uncle doesn't wake up every morning, terrified that he may have pushed you too far the night before, that he might wake up with extra limbs, or a dead family?"

"I would _never_-" Harry began, but the older boy cut him off.

"_He_ doesn't know that, not for sure." He raised an eyebrow. "Just like you were afraid of him once." His eyes became hypnotic. "Tell me, Harry, how many times did you go to bed hungry? How many times were you forced to do work that even a full-grown man would have found difficult, and how many times did you fear that your uncle would truly kill you?"

Harry shook his head violently, stumbling until he managed to sit in his desk chair. "Uncle Vernon's not that bad," he said weakly, "none of the Dursleys are."

Riddle's dark brows nearly hit his hairline. "You grew up in cupboard, Harry, in darkness and filth, while your cousin was given everything his piggy little heart desired! They don't deserve your mercy."

"They're not worth staying mad at," the younger boy explained.

Riddle chuckled. "Normally I would agree with you—muggles usually are beneath notice—but they did you wrong Harry, made you suffer for years on end for something that you had no control over." He rose to his feet, looming over the younger man. "Have you no honor, boy?" Riddle mocked, strangely mimicking Uncle Vernon. "You'll _let_ them beat you down?"

"They're not that bad," Harry repeated, although he couldn't get much strength in his voice. They were talking about his relatives, after all, and it was rather hard to defend people who had made it their mission to make his life as horrible as possible.

"And what of that woman downstairs, the one who called you deranged? You'll listen to her slander you, and not raise a hand in retaliation?" Riddle asked silkily. "Listen to her compare your family to her dogs, or shriek about how worthless you are?"

Harry's temper finally snapped. "I despise Aunt Marge, and there is nothing I'd like more than for her negative attitude to be turned right back at her, but-"

Riddle cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Would you really?" He smiled and faded from view. "Who knew that Harry Potter had such a vindictive streak hiding within him?" the older boy's low voice whispered from where he had stood moments before.

Harry, for his part, was horrified at what he had said in front of _Tom Riddle_ about a _muggle_ woman; complaining to him about anyone of non-wizarding descent was just asking for trouble. Blankly, Harry stared at where Riddle had been, his body frozen as his mind pictured all manner of horrible things that could happen to Aunt Marge.

A loud crash sounded downstairs, finally prompting Harry into action, but what he found in the living room completely defied his expectations. He had thought, perhaps somewhat naively, that he would find himself walking into a world of death, with corpses strewn about in a horrible display of power. The trouble with that image was that it failed to take Riddle's imagination and thirst for revenge into account. So, instead, Harry found himself walking into a strange world of dark whimsy. The living room was dim, the sun blocked from the windows by shimmering star-like canvasses. Across the floor rose a low tide of ink, completely submerging Aunt Petunia's favorite rug, and everyone's ankles, in a wet blackness. Here and there, shapes bubbled up out of the tiny ocean. Creatures such as Harry had never seen skittered and dove about the room, black legs and fins gleaming in the soft glow cast from the canvasses. They seemed to dart about the room at random, but he soon realized that eventually the creatures all came to circle around Riddle.

Riddle stood in the middle of the room, atop Aunt Petunia's coffee table, fully corporeal. Ink ran from his hands and legs, bubbling over the surface of the table like a small waterfall, while over his head a swirl of flying ink-creatures circled. For one brief moment, as he finally noticed Harry enter the room, his eyes glowed a bloody red, then faded back to their normal dark tones. "I'm so glad you joined us, Harry. I'm doing this for you, after all," he purred, a maniacal grin blooming over his face.

"Sto-" Harry began to demand, but liquid hands clamped over his mouth.

"Now, Harry," Riddle chided gently, "we can't have you spoiling your gift. Just sit back and enjoy."

Something reached out of the lake of ink and wrapped around his ankles while his wrists were seized from behind. The green-eyed boy struggled for all he was worth, but his bonds refused to give way.

"Who are you?" Uncle Vernon roared at Riddle, obviously able to perceive the older boy in this form. "I demand that you leave at once!"

Riddle barely spared a glance for the purple-faced man. "So what will it be, my young Gryffindor?" he asked, idly petting the ink-based monstrosity that had landed on his shoulder. "Shall I drown them?" A wave rose up, crashing against the Dursleys' laps. "Shall I burn them?" A red haze enveloped the room as tiny flames danced and flickered across the surface of the inky ocean, then sputtered and died, but not before they had singed some of the furniture and a few pairs of trousers as well. "Or," Riddle slowly began to turn, at last facing Aunt Marge, who had been seated behind him, "shall I spare them, and concentrate on her?" He looked over his shoulder at Harry, a single brow raised. "She's really the one you want hurt the most, isn't she?"

Harry tried to shake his head as Aunt Marge began to shriek and bluster in terror.

"Deny it all you want," Riddle raised a hand, creating a ring of fire around Marge's chair, "but I can see your hatred for her shining in your eyes." Something slithered up from the ink-covered floor to twine about Marge's legs, keeping her trapped in the chair. "Why save someone you hate, someone who would not extend the same courtesy to you?" he asked quietly, then turned back around to face the hysterical woman. "Let the Heir of Slytherin show you how to handle enemies, Harry."

* * *

Harry ran, as far and as fast as his legs would carry him, stumbling occasionally when his ink-slicked shoes slid on the already wet pavement. Horrible images danced through his thoughts: Aunt Petunia and Dudley's terrified faces, Uncle Vernon weeping and shouting his sister's name, and Aunt Marge… well, what was left of Aunt Marge staring sightlessly into eternity, her mouth frozen in a silent scream, blood trailing obscenely from the corner of her lips. They haunted his every step, driving him further on, forcing him away from the blood and death. More than that, though, Riddle drove him on; the image of the older boy's laughing face, the memory of his gleeful jibes as he slowly delivered death was burned into Harry, spurring him past exhaustion. When he finally stopped, it was because he had tripped headlong into a flickering streetlamp.

He sat in the wavering light for what felt like hours, watching the encroaching night descend, and wondering what was to happen to him now. He couldn't return to Number Four—if there was anything left of it—he'd be sent straight to Azkaban if he did. Despite the fact that it was Riddle's doing, Harry had no doubt that the Ministry would misunderstand, just as they had when Dobby had performed magic at his house. And, in a twisted way, it sort of _was_ his fault; by destroying the diary, he'd given Riddle shape, and later blood as well, so it was Harry's fault that he was out of the Chamber, his fault that the older boy had been at Number Four in the first place. Riddle had been right all along—the consequences of his actions were far-reaching and devastating.

He was an outcast now, he couldn't return to Hogwarts so long as the Ministry might be looking for him, and he couldn't tell the Ministry the truth. As if anyone would believe that the soul of a boy who had lived fifty years ago could cause such terror and destruction! _Except for Dumbledore_, the thought wandered through his head. Dumbledore would believe him, but… would Dumbledore act; would he help? Harry hated the doubts that plagued him, that made him uncertain of how the Headmaster would react, but Dumbledore had already failed him once.

So he was truly alone, he realized with a heavy heart, without even Hedwig or his wand, having left all his things back at the Dursleys'. How was he to survive, and where was he to go? Harry eventually fell asleep under the disrupted orange light, feeling weary, lonesome, and scared.

* * *

He awoke with a start, unsure of how much time had passed; it couldn't have been long though, since it was still dark out. At first he wasn't sure what had woken him up, but slowly he became aware of voices. Just beyond his pool of artificial light, he saw two men and a woman looking around in the murky darkness. Their words were murmurs at first, vague whisperings that grew louder until he could finally make out what was being said.

"You shoulda seen it," the woman said lowly to her companions, idly lifting her illuminated wand. "Room was black as pitch; we thought he'd set the place on fire at first, and we were expectin' a nasty mess with the muggles," she paused, poking about in a large bush.

Harry stayed perfectly still, unsure of why the three adults hadn't noticed him. He thought about running, but he had already done too much of that, and something in the witch's tone kept him rooted to the spot. Could she be talking about the Dursleys?

Not finding anything in the bush, she straightened and continued, "Then, not a minute later, they all come stumblin' out of another room, covered from head to toe in black and all slightly engorged. A bit confused, all four of 'em, but none the worse for wear." She ducked behind one of the men, lifting her wand high as she searched the tree branches above them. "Turns out he just stained the place, like painted it or somethin'. But you shoulda been there," she repeated darkly, shuddering. "It was awful. Thinkin' like we did that The-Boy-Who-Lived had murdered his family… well, we're all just relieved that it turned out to be a prank gone a bit too far. Musta scared himself pretty bad though, to go runnin' off like this."

Harry drew his knees up to his chest—the motion didn't even garner a glance from the three. The Dursleys were alive, he though in astonishment, _even_ Aunt Marge! Riddle must have faked the torture somehow.

"All I know," one of the men, a burly-looking wizard who was regarding a bench suspiciously, interrupted, "is that we'd better find him. The Minister will have our wands if we don't come back with the boy, what with Sirius Black on the loose and all."

The remaining man stayed silent, his eyes staring sightlessly through Harry, before he shrugged and meandered quietly with the other two. Soon their chatter died away and they quickly faded from view, swallowed up by the night once more.

Why had they not seen him? Had he somehow, in his panic, lost control of his powers and made himself invisible? His questions were quickly answered, however, when he straightened his legs; something whispered over his head and began to pool in his lap, a silvery, familiar material: his father's invisibility cloak! He had always considered it to be lightweight, almost fluid really, but how had he not noticed its presence at all, and where had it come from?

A sound rent through the night then, a rustling that broke through the steady murmur of crickets and peepers. From a distance a light fluttered and died, only to flare to life again closer to Harry; it did this several more times until it came close enough for him to see that it was Riddle, the very last person he wanted to be near. Standing just outside the orange light of the streetlamp, Riddle faded in and out of sight as if he didn't have enough strength to remain completely visible.

Harry turned away from the older boy, looking out into the night. "Are they really alive?" he asked about the Dursleys, almost positive that Riddle had heard the witch talking; the older boy was beginning to take on nearly omnipotent perception in his mind.

Riddle shrugged and, his voice oddly echoing, replied, "They'll likely have nightmares for some time to come, provided the Ministry doesn't outright Obliviate their memories, but yes, they are alive."

"Why did you do that?" Harry whispered, his throat tightening. He had thought that he'd been witness to the torture of his relatives, but it had turned out that the only one being tortured was him.

"The Minister is coming," Riddle ignored his question, "and you have two choices: you can either take that cloak and hide, or you can let the Minister find you, coddle you to a potentially disgusting degree, and allow you to spend the remainder of your summer at the Leaky Cauldron." He faded from view for almost a solid minute, but when he returned, Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage appeared beside him.

"Why are you doing this?" Harry tried again.

"I fear that you misunderstand your gift, Harry," Riddle grinned genuinely, "but all the same… happy birthday." And, with that, he disappeared from sight for good, just moments before the Minister's dim shape trudged through the darkness.

As Harry waited for Fudge to discover him—he'd already decided to go along with the Minister; he was much too confused and weary to continue hiding—he realized that, in a strange and sick way, the older boy might have actually given him a gift that he'd longed for: Riddle had given him a Dursley-free, four weeks of freedom.

* * *

A/N: So… that was a bit darker than I intended to go for this chapter. (Also, a peeper is a frog, in case that confused any of you.) And don't worry, if you're confused at what went on and why (i.e.: the fake murder of Aunt Marge) it will be explained soon.

Hurray for mostly disregarding the plot of Prisoner of Azkaban! As I said when this story first started, there will probably be elements from the Azkaban story-line, but a lot of things are going to be completely different.

For those interested, I've added more to the Trophies section in my profile, addressing some questions that I've been asked more than once. It doesn't give away any important plot-points, but it may help you understand some of the things that have already happened. Also, don't hesitate to ask me questions; chances are I didn't explain something as well as I should have, and pointing that out to me will benefit everyone because, in most cases, I'll go out of my way to further explain it within the story. I can't promise I'll be able to answer everything, since some explanations would be plot-sensitive, but I will try my best.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: One or two lines of text were taken from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling, as were most of the characters and locations. I own nothing!


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